| 释义 |
‖ Opuntia|ɒˈpʌnʃɪə|
[L. Opuntia (sc. herba), a plant growing, according to Pliny, about the Locrian city Opus (acc. Opunt-em) in Greece; taken by Tournefort, 1700, as a generic name.]
A large genus of cactaceous plants; also, the fruit of a plant of this genus; the Prickly Pear or Indian Fig.
Opuntia vulgaris, the Common Prickly Pear or Barbary Fig, a native of America, is now naturalized on both shores of the Mediterranean, in the Canary Islands, etc.
1601Holland Pliny II. 99 About the city Opus there is an herb called Opuntia, which men delight to eat: this admirable gift the leafe hath, That if it be laied in the ground, it will take root. 1765in W. Stork Acc. East Florida (1766) 79 The third sort of soil produces the cabbage-tree,..the plumb-tree, and opuntia. 1785Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxi. (1794) 287 Opuntias are composed of flat joints connected together. 1878Hooker & Ball Marocco 277 Enclosed within massive hedges of Opuntia.
Hence oˈpuntioid a., resembling the Prickly Pears.
1857Berkeley Cryptog. Bot. 408 Remarkable for the opuntioid constriction of the subfastigate branches. |